


circular

by zefive



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, i guess?, lowkey self-hatred, they/them for grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zefive/pseuds/zefive
Summary: an eye for an eye, till the whole world’s blind.





	circular

**Author's Note:**

> this fic includes **SPOILERS!**
> 
> please finish the game (or at least get to the Elro flashback) before reading this! and, if you're reading this but don't know what Iconoclasts is: please go [check it out](http://store.steampowered.com/app/393520/), it's _phenomenal_

He should be in agony, but somehow, he isn’t.

He remembers being in agony- he remembers the rip and tear of muscles and sinews, and he remembers blood in his mouth and pounding in his head, but right now, Elro feels nothing but empty.

Empty and hollow.

He knows where he is- doesn’t even have to open his eye ~~s~~ , because he’s spent enough time in a One Concern infirmary to recognize the smell of it; fake and sterile, mattresses that might as well not have been here at all, for all they help, and a silence that weighs too heavy, like it is a tomb instead of an infirmary, a grave instead of a room.

Elro knows she’s here.

He can feel her gaze on him- heavy, harsh. Furious.

He should feel something; terror, fear, anger. But it is like there is nothing left in him, like he has been drained of all life; like he is a corpse waiting for its strings to tear, empty of all but a deep, aching, hollowness.

“Why?” she asks, and her voice is even. Not calm, definitely not calm, because there is a tsunami brewing beneath the surface, a black hole inside of her. She is tearing apart.

Elro should be laughing, but he isn’t.

He’s tired.

He is so, _so_ , tired. Exhausted, worn down. There really is nothing left inside of him, and whatever answer she wants, he can’t give it to her.

He can’t give her anything.

“Answer me!” she snaps, a sudden explosion of noise, and he forces his eye ~~s~~ open, turns his head. She’s glaring at him, fire burning in her eyes, something desperate and animalistic lingering in there. She could burn him to embers, could crush him like a fly, and somehow the knowledge doesn’t scare him at all. “ _Tell me!_ ”

“I don’t know.”

He watches, impassively, as the words break her.

Watches as they twist into her, as they crawl into her head and sink into her mind, watches as her eyes go wide and empty.

It feels like they’ve been doing this for decades.

“No,” Black says. Her hands are curling into fists. “No, _no_ \- you’re lying.”

Elro shrugs. Looks away from her, and up at the ceiling instead, because there’s no point now. There’s no point in arguing, in fighting, in hurting each other again and again.

He’s tired.

“Look at me,” she says. “Look at me!”

He closes his eye ~~s~~.

She screams. Launches herself forward, hands slamming down on the bed, bending the metal beneath her strength.

“FUCKING LOOK AT ME!”

He sighs. Complies.

Her face is painful to look at- not in a personal way, because he can’t care, but in the way her face is streaked with veins and her eyes are wild, and in the way she looks seconds away from falling off the edge of sanity.

He almost feels sorry for her.

(he doesn’t though)

“Does it matter?” he asks, voice bland. “Grey’s dead. Get over it.”

She _roars_. Slams out her hand, and the wall beside them explodes into dust and stone, and her body is heaving with fury and pain and _loss_ , and Elro doesn’t _care_.

“WHY!” she shouts, inches from his face, teeth sharp and eyes lost. “ _Tell me **why!**_ ”

She could kill him. Could rip him into pieces, and she _wants_ to, and right now, Elro doesn’t actually _care_ , but-

But Robin.

(he remembers Robin, standing on the other side of the room, eyes wide and determined, ready to face down anything to save him, ready to fight _anyone_. it hurts like nothing else ever will)

“I don’t know,” he repeats.

And that’s the thing- he doesn’t _know_ why. He doesn’t know why he killed Grey, why he decided to make that serum. Why he couldn’t just _get over himself_ , why he couldn’t just let Dad _go_.

His fingers curl. His chest hurts, and he’s supposed to not _feel_ anything, but there they are anyway, sneaking through the cracks, and Elro closes his eye ~~s~~ tight, _refuses_ to let Black see him hurt.

(she’s already seen him hurt enough)

“So they died for _nothing_?”

Her voice is quiet. Quiet and pained, and _yeah_. They did.

Grey died because he was an idiot. Because he _is_ an idiot. A fuck up.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and he can see, so vividly, the way Grey’s body contorted and twisted, the way they screamed and _died_ , and-

(he had ran. he had ran until he couldn’t anymore, and then he had collapsed and vomited, and ached, because he _hadn’t meant to-_ )

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, and doesn’t apologize. Because he’s sorry, but she doesn’t _deserve_ it.

She killed his daughter, and he’s sorry for killing Grey, but he won’t _ever_ be sorry for hurting her.

Black leans away. Pulls her hand out of the wall, and he can’t see her eyes, can barely see the way her mouth twists into something pained and sad and human. She reminds him of himself, in this fleeting and bare moment.

They hate each other.

They _hate_ each other, but right now, Elro is too tired to hate. He can’t hate her, he can’t hate anything that isn’t himself, small and pathetic, and the cause of all of this.

If he hadn’t killed Grey, would any of this have happened?

“I’m going to kill you,” Black says, matter of fact. “I’m going to suffocate you with my own two hands, and I’ll make sure your _pest_ of a sister hurts with it.”

If he hadn’t killed Grey, would they have been here now? Endlessly hurting each other, digging into each other’s wound until they both bleed out, killing everything around them in this twisted circle of revenge?

(no)

Elro closes his eye ~~s~~. Feels every ache in his bones, and bites down on it, feels the burning in his shoulder and the agony in his chest.

He’s tired and hurting, and he can barely feel a thing, but he can’t let Robin down. He can’t hurt Robin.

(not again)

“No one’s stopping you,” he says, and keeps his eye ~~s~~ closed, his body limp.

Black moves lightning quick, fast enough he knows he wouldn’t have seen it- her grip is crushing around his throat, and even though he expected it, his breath still hitches with surprise, with fear.

He doesn’t struggle.

Not even as she curls her fingers into his flesh and strangles him, slowly and surely, not even when the air runs out and his lungs burn.

“That’s enough Black.”

And as quick as it came, the grip leaves. His chest heaves, eye ~~s~~ popping open, and he coughs in air, lungs struggling in his chest.

“Fuck you,” Black snarls, just inches from him, and Chrome walks across the floor, the tap-tap of his prosthetic legs loud in the silence.

“Fated sister; there will be time later. For now, we must attend to the workers.”

Black snarls again- it echoes in the room, more animalistic than human, and Elro wheezes softly, fingers curled and body tense. This has to work. He can’t _stay_.

And then, finally, Black scoffs. “Fine. But if you let him escape, I’ll rip you into pieces.”

She leaves, then, and Elro opens his eye ~~s~~ , breath aching in his throat and his lungs. Everything hurts, now- really and truly _hurts_ , and while he still feels hollow, it’s hard to feel over the sheer _agony_ in his body.

The ceiling is an ugly, familiar purple, and outside the door, Elro can hear Chrome assigning soldiers to watch him- can hear both agents leave, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see the soldiers enter, can see them murmuring between each other.

Everything hurts. His bones aches and his head is pounding, and the burning in his shoulder is slowly intensifying, but he needs to _focus_.

He needs to get out while he can- he needs to find Robin, and he needs to get her _safe_ , and he _needs to protect her_.

He can’t lose her.

The agents are lining up on either side of him, and Elro knows what he has to do, and he knows it will hurt, and he _knows_ he should give up, but he can’t. He can’t stop now, just as he couldn’t stop all those days ago, when he killed Grey and they started this. This fucked up game of taking and taking, and Elro will die before he lets Black lay a _single finger_ on Robin.

He needs to protect Robin. He needs to keep her safe.

It’s all he has left.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i finished iconoclasts, and just. had to write something for these two. ;;
> 
> this is probably super rambly and disoriented, but i don't really want to reread, so imao, who cares. also wow. i'm the first one to write an iconoclasts fic. amazing.
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! and remember: feedback is _always_ appreciated!


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